WE SHALL NOT BE ASKED WHAT WE HAVE READ,
BUT WHAT WE HAVE DONE…

— THOMAS E KEMPIS

I did it! I finally conquered the one item that I’ve struggled to get rid of… books! And if you really want to downsize your collection, I know you can do it too!

I had been influenced by someone else’s words. They convinced me that an at-home library was necessary for everyone. So it took me a long time to break away from that mentality.

Unlike all my other clean-outs which only took minutes to hours, this took weeks to months. I weighed the worth of every book in a struggle to figure out whether or not to keep it. Then after three major and one minor clean-outs, I finally have them down to a small collection.

MY BOOK COLLECTION NOW

I kept books on my Faith, parenting, nutrition, homeschooling and one historical biography. These are the most important to me and books I reference or read all the time. I don’t have time for fiction and don’t mind this because I’ve never been interested in fiction.

HOW I DOWN-SIZED MY BOOKS

1st CLEAN OUT

In the first clean-out, I gave away books that I either never read or tried to and didn’t find interesting to continue. I also went through the children’s storybooks that were falling apart and/or were no longer legible.

2nd CLEAN OUT

In the second clean-out, I decided to move the books from a section of shelves that measured 7’x12′ to six smaller shelves in the back of the house. Since the space was much smaller, this required me to give away more books.

This time around it was books that my children had read in the past but no longer read and my younger children had no interest in reading. This took much longer because we discussed almost every book as a family, trying to decide what stays and what goes. But it’s hard to argue keeping a book when no one reads it. 😊

3rd CLEAN OUT

The third clean-out happened when I decided to move the books from the shelves on the wall, to underneath my newly built coffee table. Again this was a smaller area and I told my family that whatever didn’t fit under there, other than homeschooling books, I’d be giving away.

This is when my children decided to keep a small collection of books for themselves in each of their bedrooms. So each of them selected between ten and twenty books. Some of the places they have them stored are on a desk, on a dresser and in a wardrobe closet.

4th CLEAN OUT

The fourth clean-out is still in progress. 🤣 I’ve realized since placing the books near the floor, they tend to get messier quicker than when they were on shelves. I put them down there because they cluttered our shelves but now I already want to come up with a new place to put them. Of course! 😊

So I still have a little down-sizing to do to my overall book collection but my personal collection is now down to the smallest it’s ever been. Are you struggling to let go of books? Or do you have a system to keep your books organized? Share with us in the comments!

Thank you for watching and I wish you a fantastic day! 🤗

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